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Morgan Hill, Smorgasbord, 2024, holly, resin, silk thread, paint, steel, and sterling silver, 23 1⁄4 × 14 5⁄8 × 1 1⁄4 in. (59.1 × 37.1 × 3.2 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Diane Charnov and museum purchase through the Windgate Foundation Living Artists Acquisitions Fund, 2025.18
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Artwork Details
- Title
- Smorgasbord
- Artist
- Date
- 2024
- Location
- Dimensions
- 23 1⁄4 × 14 5⁄8 × 1 1⁄4 in. (59.1 × 37.1 × 3.2 cm)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Diane Charnov and museum purchase through the Windgate Foundation Living Artists Acquisitions Fund
- Mediums Description
- holly, resin, silk thread, paint, steel, and sterling silver
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Object — foodstuff
- Dress — accessory — jewelry
- Object Number
- 2025.18
Artwork Description
Jewelry maker Morgan Hill finds inspiration in the small pleasures of daily life: campy horror films, ’80s and ’90s pop culture, and nostalgia for her childhood. She made this elaborate necklace of fairground finds in honor of her great-grandmother Frankie, who won hundreds of ribbons for her crafts at the St. Francis County Fair in eastern Arkansas and influenced Hill’s artistic ambitions. The necklace recalls the song of Templeton, the greedy rat in the 1973 animated movie Charlotte’s Web, who sings that a fair is “a veritable smorgasbord-orgasbord-orgasbord.” Hill’s arrangement reminds us that sometimes there is pleasure in excess.
State Fairs: Growing American Craft, 2025-26